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Source: https://jcfa.org/the-plan-trump-has-already-set-in-motion-against-iran/
The Plan Trump Has Already Set in Motion Against Iran
(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Sagiv Asulin - It appears that a principled decision to strike at the Iranian regime was taken two months ago at Mar-a-Lago. What we have seen in recent days, and what we are likely to see soon, is not a series of impulsive reactions; it is a managed and carefully planned event, advancing according to clearly defined stages. The first stage is the campaign of the slain: a continuous flood of death tolls, harrowing footage, and testimonies seeping out of Iran following a partial reopening of the internet. The U.S. needs a smoking gun, a casus belli, a justification for war. Americans require a moral and political rationale to legitimize a broader move. The second stage is talk of a siege, the creation of a sense of tightening suffocation. The Iranian regime is accustomed to living under sanctions. Nevertheless, it creates an appearance of pressure, a sense that diplomacy is underway. It is a pattern Trump has used repeatedly. The third stage is discourse - negotiations. Iran will talk and threaten, while simultaneously sending quiet messages and asking for time. However, the terms placed on the table will be such that the Iranian regime cannot accept them. The real demand is not the dismantling of the nuclear program, but the dismantling of the regime's very essence, and the radical Shiite regime in Tehran cannot agree to its own dissolution. Here the central element comes into play: surprise. The strike, when it comes, will not be a symbolic event nor a one-night operation. It will be a prolonged aerial campaign, sustained over time, with repeated waves of strikes targeting regime symbols, Revolutionary Guard headquarters, the Basij militia, and the infrastructure of control and repression. The objective is not merely to damage military capability, but to create conditions under which the people take to the streets. Trump either enters the history books as the one who freed the Middle East from an extremist regime that destabilizes the global order, or he falls into the Iranian trap of delays, prolonged talks, and stalling tactics. The writer, a former senior officer and operations commander in Israel's security forces, is an expert on Iran, influence operations, and strategic perception at the Jerusalem Center.